The Program

Scholarships for Ecuadorian Students

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

GOAL:
The Ecuadorian Scholars Fund will help Ecuadorian students living in the New York Tri-State Area to obtain a higher education degree through a financial contribution.

OBJECTIVES:
Our program will:

  • Help this year with $1,000 scholarships to 5 Ecuadorian students living in the New York Tri-State area, with outstanding academic activity and involved in community work. Scholarships will be awarded on November.
  • Monitor the performance of students during the fall semester (September -December). This will allow the organization to provide support to scholarship recipients to ensure success. If the organization is unable to help the scholarship winners in some way, we will refer them to an entity that can address their specific case.
  • Measure its success on January to verify that the five students have completed the fall semester, and that their total grade point average (GPA) remains or exceeds 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.

METHOD:

Organizacion Juventud Ecuatoriana (JUVE) requests a philanthropic contribution of $ 10,000 to be used as seed capital to create a permanent scholarship fund. A committee has been put together for this project to coordinate the promotion process, receiving applications, the selection of the winners in this scholarship contest, and the evaluation of the project’s success. This scholarship is intended to assist students in paying costs related to their studies at institutions located in the states of New York, New Jersey or Connecticut. The organization will work with the Department of Education and/or local universities to verify that students meet the criteria for these scholarships. The requirements to apply and participate in the scholarship competition are:

1. Must be an Ecuadorian citizen or of Ecuadorian descent.

2. Must be enrolled, or accepted, to study in the fall semester at an accredited University in the NY Tri-State area.

3. Must have a total grade point average (GPA) of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.

4. Must participate in 2 workshops of “Leadership and Team Building” provided by JUVE.

5. Must provide proof of having completed a minimum of 15 hours of community service within the year.

6. Must write an argumentative essay about a topic chosen annually (details in the general requirements page)

For reasons of transparency, the people involved in the process of implementation, evaluation and selection of the winners may not receive any scholarships. The project begin June and end on January of the following year. The scholarship contest is open to the public through an electronic application on JUVE’s website on July 1, at 12 am and will close on August 31, at 11:50 pm.

The Director of Programs is responsible for receiving electronic applications with all the requirements attached, and will assign an identification number for each essay. The purpose of the identification number is to conceal the name of the fellowship candidate and thus avoid any discrimination or preference. The same Director of Programs will submit the essays to the jury, and the requirements will be sent to the person assigned to verify such compliance. Consequently, the Director of Communications is responsible for reviewing compliance with the requirements submitted by the candidates for the scholarships. Requirements will be verified through documents from universities, high school, plus a digital copy (by scanner) of an identification from Ecuador (the applicant’s, or their parents’ or grandparents’ if they were born in the U.S.). Additionally, the Director of Communications will check that candidates have met the requirements in the areas of Leadership, Team Building, and community service.

The selection committee (the jury) is comprised of professionals and educators from various sectors, who will evaluate all applications based on leadership, service Community trial quality, and academic performance. The Director of Programs and the President of the Board of Directors will receive the qualifications of candidates for the scholarships, will identify the 5 winners according to the results of the selection committee and will contact the 2017 Scholarship contest winners.

The winners will be published in www.juventudecuatoriana.org and through press releases by September. The scholarship winners will be contacted via telephone by September, and those who did not win will be notified and will be thanked for their participation. The official presentation of the scholarships will be at the Juve Gala in November. The scholarship winners, the students who applied, sponsors, elected officials, the media, and members of the organization and of the community will be invited to this ceremony.